Literary Characters You Wish Were Your Pen Pals

While I love the convenience of email, I can’t imagine that future generations will get the same voyeuristic joy from reading the collected emails of their favorite authors that I get from reading the letters of Katherine Anne Porter or Willa Cather. Letter writing is definitely a dying art, but it’s not lost just yet.

It’s not surprising that the most popular characters come from the world of Harry Potter. There’s just something appealing about getting to send a letter via Owl Post. Hermione and Dumbledore were most likely to get letters from our readers, but Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom could expect an owl or two, too.

Other characters that could expect to receive more than a few letters from Riot readers include:

Jane and Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre

Gandalf and Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings

Jay Gatsby, Nick Carroway, and Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby

Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables

Guy Montag and Clarisse McClellan from Fahrenheit 451

Atticus and Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird

Scarlet O’Hara, Rhett Butler, and Melanie Hamilton Wilkes from Gone With the Wind

the unnamed narrator in The Invisible Man

And the Little Women – “I know it’s more than one, but they seem like they’d be good correspondents!”

A few rioters took the time to explain their choices:

I would write a letter to the characters based on my evil time line. evil me, my friends, family, everyone. but not just evil, alternate. like a thousand “what if’s.” every time you read a novel and it breaks your heart, i’d write to them. what if it was different? what if there was no Darcy, or Bingley? what if the world was ran by timid Jane’s and plump Tilney’s? then i’d make a book outta it. ok, i just like writing letters. a lot. please pick me! (sorry about the lack of caps, im writing from my phone!)

Dagny from Atlas Shrugged. I am so much like her before she meets John Galt, I’d love to hear about her relationship drama, new business start ups, and new opinions

Dina Dalal of Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. I would like to check in with her, reminisce about her lost love and her boarder friends, and make sure her relatives are being kind to her. I think of her often.

Zedd from Sword of Truth series. I want to be called “Dear one.”

Bertha Antoinetta Mason. Maybe getting some mail would’ve made her less angry whilst locked up in that room…

Toru Watanabe – so you had something else to look forward to besides letters from Naoko.

The other characters on this list should check their mail boxes, too. Just not as frequently.

Delirium from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series

Locke Lamora from Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastard series

Edmond Dantes from Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo

Captain Wentworth from Persuasion by Jane Austen

Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Leopold Bloom from Ulysses by James Joyce

May Welland from Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence

Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen